Bulls Island (23 page)

“She’d have to get in line behind Louisa,” I said, slightly irritated by Joanie’s remark. “Y’all got any soap for the dishwasher?”

“Just scrape off the food and run everything on the scrub cycle,”
Joanie said. “Cascade! That’s
one more thing
to put on my list for tomorrow! Jeesch!”

Nasty. How long had my father been eating from dirty dishes?

“Oh. Okay,” I said, gagging a little.

“I gotta go walk my babies,” Joanie said, declaring her intention not to help us finish the cleaning-up.

“No problem!” Daddy said. “We’re almost done here anyway.”

Daddy and I restored order in the kitchen in the best way we could and neither of us commented on the ruckus outside as Joanie bridled her pack of animals for their evening stroll.

When the barking of her dogs could no longer be heard, Daddy and I settled ourselves on the porch in the old rockers with glasses of water, the sounds of cicadas and the pleasant hum and intermittent creaks of the rusting overhead fans the only sound track. The weather was warm but not unbearably humid. After a day in the heat of Bulls Island, I’ll admit I was aching for some heavy-duty air-conditioning, like in the confines of my condo rental. But there I was on the porch of my childhood home with my father, wondering why in the world he was living as he was.

“Daddy? Can I ask you something without offending you?”

“Well, I can’t answer that until I’ve heard the question, now, can I? But go ahead.”

“Well, it’s just that…oh, shoot! Listen, Daddy, you’re a very wealthy man. Why don’t you have a housekeeper?”

“Because your sister can’t get along with anyone. I’ve hired them one after another. They all quit or she fires them. Seriously. It’s ridiculous.”

“What’s ridiculous is that Joanie is sort of holding you hostage in your own home with her funky dogs, when you should be entertaining ladies, spending your money, and having fun.”

There was a long pause from the direction of my father’s chair. Then I heard a sigh that seemed to come from a place so deep inside
of him, it was as though he had spent the last decade dreading the question I’d just asked. I waited for his response.

“Betts. Here’s the truth. After your mother died, I never looked at another woman again.”

“Why? Are you serious? I mean, I understand that mourning is normal and all that, but it’s been so many years.”

“Yes, it has. But like you, I imagine, the days just turned into months, and then, you know how it is in this town—people stop calling, and well, I don’t mind this life.”

“Daddy? Don’t you want to travel? You know, go on a safari? See Cambodia? Mexico City? Paris?”

“Oh, Betts. It’s not that I wouldn’t like a change of pace from time to time. And I realize that Joanie living here isn’t exactly optimal for either one of us. But this is the life I’ve gotten used to. She has as well. I think it’s too late to change things now.”

“There’s something more to this and I know it. I mean, take Joanie for starters. She’s just a mess!”

I could see him smiling slightly in the faint light, that knowing look of agreement and acceptance on his face.

“Well, she
is
! And you deserve more, Daddy. You really do. You worked so hard for so many years…”

“Deserve? What do I deserve? I don’t deserve anything.”

“What do you mean? You deserve anything you want!”

He became very quiet then and there was a long silence before he spoke again.

“If I could have anything I wanted, Betts, it would be to have your beautiful mother back. Her death ruined our lives.”

“Daddy, it was an accident. What are you saying?”

“Perhaps it was an accident, but it was
my
fault.”

I could tell by the insistence in his voice that this was something about which he was absolutely resolute. I hesitated a moment, and in that moment I thought about my own sins.

Finally, I asked him quietly, “How could it possibly have been your fault?”

“Because I was the one who insisted on leaving the Langleys’ that night. If we had stayed another ten minutes, just even another five minutes, that truck would have rammed into a tree instead of plowing into us.”

“There was nothing to be done about that, Daddy. That’s like saying if you could’ve seen the future, you would’ve bought tons of Microsoft on the IPO! The accident was pure fate. Not one bit your fault.”

“Ah! But if I had not had so much to drink, I would have been driving, not her. That was a choice I made, not fate, and look where it led. Look where it led.”

“Oh, Daddy.”

I reached out across the distance between us and put my hand on his. Despite the warm night, his hand was chilled. I had noticed earlier that his hands were spotted with age and that his skin, once tanned and manly looking, was now thin and crinkled like crepe paper.

“Well, sweetheart, it’s getting late and I need my rest if I’m to live another day and deal with your sister. She really means well, you know.”

“She’s delusional,” I said.

To my surprise he actually laughed a little.

“Aren’t we all?” he said. “Now, you go give those Langleys hell and don’t let the press catch you looking at J.D. like that again, you heah me? It’s not nice.”

“Yes, sir. Loud and clear.”

The whole way back out to the beach, I thought about Daddy denying himself the simplest pleasures of life because of his imagined guilt over my mother’s death. Of course, if I had been in his position, I would have questioned myself over and over, too. But as I said
to him, he didn’t have a crystal ball. Worse, because I was such a poor excuse for a daughter, I had not been there through the years to encourage him to get back to the business of living. I had work to do on changing Daddy’s mind-set. There was so much for which I needed to atone and I had no idea how to begin. Would anything I said or did make a difference to him?

I called Adrian, got his voice mail again, and left a message. Then I decided since I was having such poor luck contacting him, I would start an e-mail campaign. Under the veil of e-mail, I could choose my words judiciously. I worried then that if I got him on the phone, he might hear some trace of anxiety in my voice, and because, like Sandi, he could practically read my mind, he would suspect something was dreadfully wrong and then accidentally begin somehow to discover what a colossal liar I was.

As I undressed for bed, I continued, of course, to worry about Daddy. There was no voice of reason in his house—only the chaos brought about by Joanie’s madness, her insistence on painting herself as a martyr and some sort of rescuer, whether it be of Daddy or those dogs. Or seeing herself as a righter of every wrong in the world by getting involved in protesting development projects she didn’t even understand.

My feelings about developing Bulls Island were changing. The pragmatic side of me knew that the Langleys were going to build on every available square inch of the island because they were in the business of making money. But the side of me that loved J.D. believed that he would be careful not to destroy the natural beauty of the island. Especially if I kept an eye on him, which would be my greatest pleasure.

I hate to admit this, but in every private moment, my thoughts were about him. At one turn, I was ashamed of my feelings, and at another, I was exhilarated by them. Was I really such a terrible person?

It was about ten-thirty and I was turning in early so I wouldn’t have puffy eyes when I saw J.D. the next afternoon. Just as I reached over to turn out the bedside light, my cell phone rang. It was Sela.

“Hey! You sleeping?”

“Nope, not yet. Hey, Sela, thanks again for dinner last night. It was so sweet…”

“No problem. Listen, remember you asked me about a drug with the word
cotton
in it?”

“Yeah, why? Did Ed know what it was?”

“Yeah, I kept forgetting to ask him, and when I did he laughed his head off. He’s not a Val Langley fan. It’s OxyContin.”

“Well, who is? So what’s OxyContin?”

“It’s this highly addictive painkiller that people are robbing drugstores and killing pharmacists to get their hands on. It’s like morphine. They call it hillbilly heroin. It’s got street value. I mean, seriously, is Valerie taking this stuff?”

“That’s what J.D. said. And drinking vodka like water.”

“Wow. Betts? Valerie is in big trouble.”

“You think so?”

“Listen, after Ed told me, I Googled it, and you can’t believe what’s on the Internet about this stuff. You can extract oxycodone from it if you prefer the intravenous mode. It’s totally gross. What’s she doing messing with something like this?”

“Migraines.”

“Migraines. Yeah, sure. See? It just goes to show you. You never know who might be a drug addict or an alcoholic.”

“Gee whiz. Wow. Poor thing.” I actually felt sorry for Valerie.

“Poor thing, my big fat pink behind! Louisa Langley probably drove her to drugs and booze, but nobody made her keep doing them. I wonder how much she abuses.”

“I’ll find out from J.D.”

“How’s that going?”

“So far? We’re at the gate of the Garden of Eden and I can see the snake. No apples so far. I’m seeing him tomorrow.”

“Who? What snake?”

“Let’s not go to metaphor land tonight. Maybe he’s just a good smoke.”

“Call me tomorrow.”

“You know it, sugar.”

That night I dreamed I was falling from bridges and tall buildings, that I was dead, no one knew, and I was not able to tell anyone, that I was half naked and in public. Finally, when I woke at six, I decided to get up, take a shower, and have breakfast. What did these dreams mean? Falling—I hated the feeling of it. Did that mean I was losing control? Death? Was I going to fail? Or that I worried that no one was listening to me? What about being unclothed in public? Was that about the picture of J.D.?

After I showered, I read the
New York Times
from cover to cover, drank endless cups of tea, and was relieved to see that nothing about my work was in the paper that day. There was one letter to the editor from some nut who had lived in a giant sequoia or something for a year in order to protest all developers in the universe, but nothing else.

The sun was up, rising in the eastern skies as it always did, and I decided to go for a walk on the beach. It would help me focus, cover me in salt spray, and I could shower all over again. Who cared? Half the population of Charleston County was covered to some extent by salt spray. I pulled on a pair of shorts with a T-shirt and flip-flops and walked toward the water’s edge. There was every sign that it was going to be a gorgeous day. The incoming tide was peaceful and rhythmic, washing the shore. I began to relax and let my mind drift.

I couldn’t wait to see J.D., and the thought passed through my mind that perhaps I would just go out to Bulls Island anyway, instead
of waiting for three o’clock to roll around. But that could only send two wrong messages—one, that I was desperate to be in his company, and two, that I didn’t trust him to talk to the South Carolina Electric and Gas guys without me. I had to make myself busy until then. I walked on, unconsciously picked up a sand dollar, and picked away the caked-on mud with my fingernail.

Finally, when I’d had my dose of sand and salt, I turned around and went home. I placed the sand dollar on the porch railing to let the sun bleach it and went inside. I was thinking it might be nice to pick up a shell with every stroll and see how many I could collect.

It was eight o’clock and there were messages on my cell phone. Adrian and J.D. had called. I returned Adrian’s call first.

“Sweetheart?”

“Hi, Mom!”

“How’s it going?”

“Great! I mean, I love it! I mean, it’s a lot of work…”

“No! I’m sure! Well, I’m so glad…”

“When are you coming home?”

“Soon! Do you need anything? How’s your roommate?”

“You mean George? Oh, he’s fine. I never see him. He’s got this girlfriend and he’s always with her, which is fine with me because he’s a partier and I like my quiet. Plus he’s a slob…”

We talked for another ten minutes and then he had to go to class, so we hung up promising to talk just for a few minutes at least every other day. I could see his face and hear his breath and I missed him so badly I thought my heart would break. But I was careful not to let him hear that in my voice.

I just said, “Okay, baby, if you need a single thing…”

“I’m fine, Mom, I swear!”

He sounded so grown up.

“Okay, then. Love you!”

“Love you, too!”

I hung up and called J.D.

“Hey! Where were you?”

“Walking on the beach.”

“Oh? Alone?”

“No, actually, I was with Tom Cruise and Alec Baldwin. They’re fighting over me. How embarrassing is that?”

“Very.” I could hear him chuckling.

“A day without humor is a very dreary day, J.D.”

“Indeed. So listen, SCE & G canceled, so why don’t you come downtown earlier. I mean, we can get together earlier than three. I have a stack of architectural plans I want to show you.”